LAUSR

Abstract Many mothers experience acute stress disorder after hospitalized their infant in NICU. The objective was to assess the impact of an emotional support training program on acute stress disorder level among mothers of preterm infants admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit. A pretest-posttest experimental randomized controlled trial design using the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire was used on 48 mothers (24 each in two groups) of premature infants in a level III NICU in the largest public teaching hospital in Amman at Jordan. The results revealed statistically significant differences between the interventional and control group for mean post intervention scores [t (23) = 6.07, p = .01], with mean scores of 18.53 (9.33) and, 25.588 (4.99) respectively. Hence, the emotional support training programs effectively reduce acute stress disorder symptoms in mothers of premature infants in neonatal intensive care units.